Yu Xiang and Huang Lei didn’t waste time idling about while their companions rested from their earlier prolonged escape, opting to leave immediately so as to ascertain if the injured core disciple’s hypothesis had indeed hit the mark, which would put all of them in quite the dire situation.

Their trip was thankfully bereft of obstacles, with even the spiritual beasts that had been crawling all over the place just a few days prior being nowhere to be seen, more than likely having fallen back towards the center of the hidden world and their nest as some kind of instinctual need to protect their queen, which Yu dearly hoped was suffering just as much Chun Dai.

A petty thought, to be sure, but one in which the young reincarnator found a modicum of comfort, as its suffering meant that the damned beast that had fooled them all was not some sort of divine punishment sent by the Heavens to judge them and cast them down, but just a predator with enough cunning to trick a group of talented cultivators from one of the Seven Great Sects, and which could somewhat control the very world they had set foot into…

At least they hadn’t been struck by a true tribulation? Silver linings and all that.

The two cultivators made swift progress toward their goal, neither of them having to hold back quite as much since the lower stage members of their group were not with them.

Still, Huang Lei was a whopping three whole stages above the green eyed cultivator, which put him at an even bigger difference than the others with him, and with the both of them going full throttle with their own movement techniques, or at least he assumed so as Huang Lei’s skill had no obvious visual marking, Yu had to dip into his pool of Intent to keep up with the older disciple.

Speaking of which, Huang Lei was running a few steps ahead of him, her blue and royal purple robes dancing in the wind almost hypnotically when witnessed alongside her unnaturally smooth movements, as between the two of them she was the only one who knew how to locate the spatial anomaly that acted as their door to the outside.

A wooden device sat in the palm of the young lady’s right hand. A smooth and squat cylinder the color of a pine’s bark, dark markings running all over its sides, while a set of weird symbols lit up on its flat top.

The strange and clearly improvised contraption vaguely brought to the young reincarnator’s mind some kind of compass, which is more or less what it was from what he’d gleaned from Huang Lei’s explanation.

“It keeps track of the fabric of space around it.” She’d told him proudly once he’d asked her what the thing actually was, slowing down a fraction so that she could run side by side with him. “You see these lines running all over its surface?” She’d said while tracing the surface of the object with one of her delicate fingers. “These inscriptions act as an anchor for my aura, which acts as the main sensor for spatial fluctuations.”

After that, she pointed at the flattened top of the short cylinder. “The array up here instead is the actual localizer, which takes the information picked up by my spiritual senses and tells me where the spatial fluctuations are more intense, which is where our spatial door is supposed to be.”

Yu Xiang nodded appreciatively at the informative answer of the young woman, once more left in awe at the power and versatility of formation arrays, but even then he couldn’t hold back a wise crack at Huang Lei’s expense. “How come it looks like something a child would carve out of wood to pass the time?” He’d said with a slight smirk.

Lei’s usual noble demeanor cracked at his words, a slight blush creeping upon her features, much to the young reincarnator’s astonishment, which was quickly hidden behind her battle fan.

“Hmph!” She sniffed audibly, her nose rising to the skies in a motion eerily similar to those of Lin Fen when he teased him too much. “I’ll have you know that I had to make this really complicated item all on my lonesome! And I had no tools to carve and decorate it!” Then she hid the spatial compass behind her robes. “I’m sorry if its appearance does not satisfy your exacting aesthetic standards!”

At that point, Yu Xiang couldn’t help but laugh, something not helped by the finely clothed woman refusing to let him see the compass again, but in his humble and completely unbiased opinion they had both greatly needed a bit of levity, so he wasn’t feeling particularly put off by her petty reaction.

As entertaining as their small discussion had been, it had been merely a few minutes of an hours long journey, and soon enough both cultivators found themselves drifting into a somber silence.

Hour after hour they kept heading further and further away from the richer parts of the hidden world, occasionally changing directions as dictated by their spatial compass, until at some point they reached a familiar stretch of the unending plain stretching into infinity.

At that point, they didn’t even need to use the compass to locate the fluctuations anymore as they could simply retrace their steps back from where they’d originated.

Now that she didn’t need to keep her attention on her creation, Huang Lei relaxed slightly, breaking the silence by broaching a topic she’d wanted to get into with Yu Xiang for a while now.

“For how long have you been training your Intent?” She asked with deliberate casualness.

The green eyed cultivator almost tripped over himself at the unexpected question, saved from falling into a painful cartwheel by the fact he wasn’t really touching the ground but gliding above it with his movement skill.

Yu took a few moments to answer the question before he concluded there was no harm in telling her, as she obviously was already aware of what Intent was yet was still able to use her techniques without a problem.

“A little more than a month now.” He’d answered with a nonchalance that mimicked the tone of her question.

At that point, it was Huang Lei’s turn to trip over herself and almost faceplant in the dirt.

Her eyes widened till they were like saucers, her lower jaw hanging limply in pure shock. “O-one month? That’s it?” She stuttered out weakly, her noble demeanor nowhere to be seen.

Yu Xiang shrugged his shoulders, perplexed by her reaction and giving her an inquisitive stare, but the young lady was too shocked to pick up on his unspoken question.

“One month… one month and he was already able to use his Intent to refine his physique so much…” Huang Lei had started muttering to herself, which was starting to creep the young reincarnator out.

A weird glint entered the young woman’s eyes as she turned towards him once more. “Tell me.” She sounded almost desperate. “How large is the flame of your will?”

Yu Xiang’s eyes rose up in contemplation before he delivered a verbal strike directly at the young woman’s being. “Something like a campfire in size?” He shrugged his shoulders again. “Or something around that.”

Lei’s eyes somehow got even wider, her shoulders hunching and her proud posture bending. “S-so big?! That’s more Intent than I have now…” She said breathlessly. A cough shook her body, a few drops of blood escaping from between her lips.

Yu Xiang watched on in amusement as she came to terms with his apparently shocking power.

The young woman shook her head, her left hand curling against her breast. “Please speak no more, lest I end up developing a heart demon.” A grimace marred her beautiful features. “The Heavens truly do not distribute talent fairly amongst humans.”

Shortly after that amusing scene, they finally reached their destination, at which point all mirth fled from their bodies.

Identical stoic masks were placed on their faces, their spiritual senses easily picking up the presence of the hole in space they’d passed through.

And yet, something was blocking it from a deeper prodding by their auras, a fold in space that left their presence sliding off of the invisible tear in the fabric of space.

Chun Dai had been completely right.

Yu Xiang sighed in resignation while Huang Lei grimaced.

“Shit.” Was his eloquent vocal response. The young woman could not help but agree.

>>>

Meanwhile, back at the hiding place where the rest of their group was resting, the injured swordsman was getting looked over once again by the burgeoning alchemist and the young medic.

Lin Fen watched his colleague in barely hidden frustration, an emotion mirrored by Jin Shui, whose hands were resting on the core disciple's abdomen and glowing a faint light green.

The shaggy haired youth grit his teeth. "Nothing. Again." He said as he gnawed on air, irritation born from repeated failures hanging heavily over him and worsening his already poor mood.

Lin Fen could sympathize with the other young man, as his efforts had been equally fruitless. Pill after pill had been shoved into the crimson clad swordsman's mouth, followed by a momentary improvement to his situation that infallibly came to an end moments later as the venom consumed whatever medicinal power was held by the pill then returned to assaulting Chun Dai's body.

"Keep your tempers in check." Chun Dai cut through their dissatisfied thoughts like a hot knife through butter, seeing through their expressions easily. Not that it was that difficult considering their mounting negativity. "I never held any illusion that the two of you would be able to be anything more than a momentary balm for my condition, let alone actually manage to get rid of the venom plaguing me." He shook his head then. “You are far from being strong enough to do anything about it, you are simply too young, your cultivation too immature.”

Lin Fen could see the truth in his words, and he even felt faintly grateful that the stoic swordsman was so quick to banish any feeling of responsibility for his condition that they might develop, even if his wording and delivery could use some work as it would’ve seemed a lot harsher than it was supposed to be to someone who hadn’t been interacting with the man for a prolonged amount of time.

But still, the feline alchemist wasn’t satisfied, and judging by Jin Shui’s expression, who looked like he’d just swallowed down a lemon, neither was he.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more that they could do. Lin Fen’s stockpile of medicinal pills and anti toxins was dwindling with every passing moment and he did not have either the time or the skill to meet or even exceed the number of pills Chun Dai consumed every hour.

The venom had spread to pretty much all of the core disciple’s body, but it wasn’t the physical aspect of it that was the problem, as the substance’s toxicity could not hope to exceed the stoic man’s steely physique, but the effect it was having on the older cultivator’s spirit.

The physical venom running through his body was not supposed to eat away at him in the first place. It was merely an anchor point, a system of delivery for the true attack which aimed at the soul.

But still, there must be something that they could do! After all, if they somehow got rid of what was keeping the spiritual toxin there, it would be much easier for Chun Dai to get rid of.

But how…

Suddenly, a memory struck Lin Fen like one of his companion’s thunder spears, a memory of a green object hanging inconspicuously from one of the many trees that littered the inner parts of this hidden realm, an object chock full of spiritual energy carrying the essence of life.

A method to strengthen the core disciple’s body while flooding it with vital energy diametrically opposed to the deathly toxin running through his veins.

The feline cultivator allowed himself a small smile, metaphorically patting his own back for having come up with such a genius idea.

He just might be able to prove Chun Dai wrong this way!